it came up with the clinton administration with welfare reform, but to understand where republicans are coming to, at least the run are republicans in congress these days, it's important to understand how real, how important it is that their views, that government infringes on personal liberty almost no matter what it expose that it fosters dependency among the population. but those convictions, those views, were an obstacle, even to having a conversation between asset of state and the secretary of defense under george bush, a real conversation about whether or not the invasion in iraq should take place or the country should do more by way of sanctions and other forms of pressure. the interesting thing to me about what happened in iraq, here's something i got completely wrong. when the president in december of '06 basically asked -- he lost control of congress, decided to do a surge in iraq, people like me thought, well, this is stupid. iraq is going really badly. really, really badly. this is just an effort to delay the day of reckoning. we have to have a different strategy. what i did